It appears a proposal to get voters to pile more taxes upon themselves through the clever use of semantics is dead for another legislative session.

Good riddance.

For years now, lawmakers have tried to gain support for a misguidedly taxpayer-friendly-sounding “progressive tax.” Using charts and statistics, a growing number of legislators see a change in the way people are taxed in Illinois as the panacea for the state’s money problems. They argue that, under the tax system, those who make more money will pay more, or that it will benefit middle-class taxpayer in Illinois.

Not only is it not a cure — especially since the problem in Illinois is not one of revenue, but one of over-spending — it would be a burden to most hard-working people.

Even before tax-rate massacres in 2011 and again last year, Illinois has maintained one of the highest state and local tax burdens in the nation.

While taking more out of the pockets of tax-beleaguered residents, state leaders are realizing it’s not enough to quench the insatiable thirst for spending without boundaries.

The result is the state still has more than $8 billion in unpaid bills and a $130 billion liability in unfunded pension benefits.

Enter the progressive tax.

Its name is derived from the rather simple concept that the more someone makes, the more their tax burden becomes. Yet buried amid that simplicity is a reality that the median family in Illinois would see at least a 15 percent increase, or about $390, in the amount of taxes they pay each year, according to calculations by the Illinois Policy Institute.

Fortunately, there are some pretty significant roadblocks on the path to such a proposal. The biggest challenge is that it has to be approved by voters. Before that, it would require super-majority votes in both legislative chambers to get it onto the ballot.

That’s where things have been derailed.

Fifty Republican House members are backing a resolution opposing the plan, meaning the votes aren’t there. There are 118 members of the House, which means 71 lawmakers would have to back the plan. Any constitutional amendment would have to be approved by May 6 to be on November’s general election ballot.

The math isn’t there, nor is the support of the people. A petition by Illinois Policy against the progressive tax has more than 12,000 signatures and, in a poll conducted by the libertarian think tank, 71 percent of people opposed or had no opinion about a progressive tax.

It is unlikely that means the idea won’t come back again in years to come.

Perhaps the energy being wasted on trying to cram another anti-taxpayer initiative down the throat of Illinoisans could be better spent hammering out true reform, starting with sensible spending controls.